Christmas as planned

 

As we know from last year, Christmas doesn’t always go according to plan. With infection rates on the up the government reimposed Covid restrictions. Plans for festive reunions with family and friends had to be shelved. Hopefully that won’t happen again this time.*

Hopefully. The pandemic has certainly reminded us that our best laid plans may be disrupted. We are only human after all. None of us knows what challenges the future may bring. But the first Christmas happened exactly according to plan.

According to the Bible that plan was revealed almost as soon as the first human beings had sinned against God by defying his command. The Lord promised that a deliverer would come to break the power of sin and death. The fulfilment of that promise is the golden thread that runs through the Bible’s story.

God promised Abraham that one of his descendants would bring the blessings of salvation to all peoples. The Lord told King David that from his royal family line would come a king who would bring hope to the world. Then, in the fulness of time God sent his Son the Lord Jesus. He came as one of us, born of Mary. His birthplace was Bethlehem, the City of David. Just as the ancient prophets foretold. 

All went exactly according to plan. As Jesus grew up he knew that God’s plan meant he was going to have to lay down his life and then rise from the dead to break the power of sin and death. And so he did. By faith in Jesus we can know forgiveness of sin and the hope of everlasting life. Nothing can separate the believer from God’s love in the Lord Jesus. You can be sure of that because while our plans often fail, God’s never will.

*For local parish magazines, deadline mid-November, before the discovery of the Omicron variant